A system is described in German Patent Application No. DE 100 27 006 for controlling/regulating the operational sequences in a motor vehicle, which has a central memory in which all programs are filed that are required for the control/regulation of the operational sequences of a vehicle. At the start of the system, the required programs are loaded into the working memories of the controllers. The idea and the purpose of this known system is to keep centrally available programs and the functionalities connected therewith.
Furthermore, European Patent No. EP 1 169 686 describes a method and a device for storing data in a vehicle for the evaluation of the stored data. The teaching of this document pursues the purpose of recording, classifying and storing dynamic data on the entire life cycle or utilization period of a vehicle, and, in the light of these data, of reconstructing the utilization of the vehicle and the wear of the vehicle between the time of initial operation and any arbitrary readout point. A central memory medium is provided, for storing the data of interest, which is connected to the data bus to which the components delivering the data are also connected. The centrally filed data from units are analyzed in order to find a measure for the utilization or the wear of the vehicle or of its components. Control or regulation of the operational sequences in a vehicle is not provided in this instance.
Modern vehicles include a multitude of controllers which control or regulate the various operational sequences (electromechanical braking (EMB), ABS, air bag electronic units in the vehicle, drive train, electrically operable vehicle elements and other items), most of the controllers being networked with others.
In the following, by control unit, the controller itself or the control unit (ECU, electronic control unit) in a controller is to be understood.
Many control units require permanent memory, more or less to supply the specific configuration data. This permanent memory is mostly realized in the form of EEPROM's (electronically erasable programmable read-only memory). Such EEPROM's make the controllers costly and represent hardware that has to be operated.
Furthermore, these EEPROM's have to be electromagnetically compatible and stable to radiation and so-called “bit dropouts”, which, in practice, is often not the case. Consequently, the number of EEPROM's increases the danger of failures or faulty functioning, with correspondingly negative results for the control or regulation of the operational sequences in the vehicle. The control units are usually networked with one another via a communications bus, that is, they are also able to exchange data among themselves. As the communications bus, a CAN system (controller area network) is mostly used these days, a computer-assisted data bus system having serial data transmission.
The control units, that require permanent data, file these in their own permanent memory. Depending on requirements, the data are read from the permanent memory (EEPROM) at start-up or “on demand”. For this, usually a driver software module is required. Depending on how sensitive the data are, they are secured using check sums, or even filed in duplicate or triplicate.
A system is to be made available that may be used with greater security and, at the same time, at lower expenditure, for controlling and regulating the operational sequences in a vehicle. Furthermore, a corresponding method is to be described.